We aim to influence the theory, analysis and practice of development worldwide to the benefit of disadvantaged people and countries, and to support international networks and local institutions involved in this endeavour.

Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.

“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”

We aim to influence the theory, analysis and practice of development worldwide to the benefit of disadvantaged people and countries, and to support international networks and local institutions involved in this endeavour.

We aim to influence the theory, analysis and practice of development worldwide to the benefit of disadvantaged people and countries, and to support international networks and local institutions involved in this endeavour.

Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.

“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”

Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.

“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”

MSc in Global Governance & Diplomacy

The MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy is a nine-month course designed to provide high-quality graduate training about the institutions and processes of global governance and diplomacy and will prepare you for a career in those fields or beyond.

The degree will teach you about the sources, mechanisms, processes, and practices of global governance at the international, transnational, state, and sub-state levels, focussing on issues such as globalisation, regional integration, international organisation, and multilateralism. It will also provide you with substantive knowledge and theoretical background concerning the institutions and processes of international diplomacy, including diplomatic practice, international negotiation, conflict mediation, and public diplomacy, as well as the conduct of diplomacy in international and regional bodies.

You can choose from a rich menu of options to deepen your knowledge about specific aspects of global governance and diplomacy.

You will write a dissertation on a topical issue of your choice, under the close supervision of a resident scholar, and receive training in research methods, enabling you to apply to proceed to doctoral studies if you so wish. Alternatively, the course will prepare you for a professional career in global governance and diplomacy, as well as civil society and business.

There is also a mandatory, two-term course on qualitative and quantitative research methods in the social sciences.

Lastly, you will research and write a 10,000- to 12,000- word dissertation under the supervision of a supervisor to be submitted towards the end of the final term.

Over the duration of the course you will benefit from a series of plenary lectures and other events. These introduce important issues of global governance and diplomacy and/or provide research-led presentations on related topics, followed by discussion.

Most of our teaching takes place in small classes to encourage active participation and enable students to learn from each other. Teaching styles are diverse and include lectures, seminars, workshops, and student presentations.

The foundational course in Global Governance and Diplomacy explores the sources, mechanisms, processes, and practices of global governance at the subnational, national, international, and transnational levels, focussing on issues such as globalisation, regional integration, international organisation, and multilateralism. It also provides students with a thorough knowledge of the institutions and processes of international diplomacy, including key themes of diplomatic thought, paradigms of international negotiation, ethical boundaries of diplomatic engagement, and transformative implications of digital technologies.

Part I on qualitative methods (Michaelmas Term) develops common research methods in the social sciences including but not limited to the topics of concept formation, causal analysis, single and comparative case study methods, case selection, qualitative interviewing, historical and ethnographic methods, and genealogy. The course familiarizes students with a suite of research techniques, taking account of their methodological and epistemological background. The emphasis is on enabling students to become savvy consumers, and eventually producers, of scholarship using qualitative methods.

Part II on quantitative methods (Hilary Term): Lectures are held jointly with the first-year MPhil students, while classes are organised in smaller groups, and are led by teaching assistants. The aim of this course is to familiarize students with the basic statistical methods used in quantitative social research with a focus on descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, model building, regression analysis, and identification of causal relationships. The emphasis is on the intuitive understanding of concepts and procedures. The course provides students with an elementary understanding of the logic of statistical analysis and with the skills to conduct a basic analysis using a statistical software. It also equips students to present basic quantitative data and helps them develop strategies for using data to support their research. The aim is to develop skills in research methods for those who have no prior experience, and to enhance the skills of those with some prior knowledge. It should also be helpful to students in critically appraising published research.

Please note that the option courses available change from year to year. Below is a list of options that are available during 2018-19. There is no guarantee that the same options will be offered in future years.

Designed for students who have limited introduction to diplomatic and public international law, the course aims to give students a practical understanding of how international law informs, regulates and constrains the conduct of diplomacy. The seminar will focus on the following central questions: What principles and instruments underpinning the international legal order are most relevant for the practice of diplomacy? Under what conditions states may be held responsible for their actions under international law? What are the main tensions between theory and practice in the application of diplomatic law? By the end of the course, students are expected to be well conversant about how diplomats practice and ought to practice international law in global affairs.

The course explores the origin and evolution of public diplomacy, its goals, methods and outcomes, and the challenges it faces in the changing geopolitical context of the 21st century. The first four sessions of the course introduce students to core theoretical debates regarding the contributions of the concept of public diplomacy (PD) to the field of diplomatic studies as well as to specific methods of PD engagement and evaluation, including from a digital perspective. The second part of the course focuses on key themes of public diplomacy, including nation branding, cultural diplomacy, diaspora relations and international exchange programs. By the end of the course, students are expected to develop analytical and practical skills necessary to analyse different approaches to public diplomacy, identify realistic and workable tools and methods for different situations, explain how to plan strategies for country image-building activities, based on best practices, and how to assess and evaluate the impact of public diplomacy programmes.

This course introduces students to the field of global security governance. The first part engages with different approaches to the study of international peace and security, and how these approaches have shaped international practice. The second part engages with traditional, state-centric approaches, focusing on issues including international terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the balance of power. Part three engages with the new security agenda resulting from the changing nature of war, technological advances, and changes to the human environment. Topics include the protection of civilians during international conflict, climate change and the environment, as well as cyber security.

Dr Noele Crossley (in 2018/19; to be offered by Professor John Gledhill in 2019/20)

This course examines the many dilemmas that are associated with contemporary processes of peacemaking, peacebuilding, and post-conflict statebuilding. We open by considering the concepts of conflict, violence, and peace, and we evaluate the post-Cold War view that democracy and a liberal market constitute the best institutional environments in which to foster peace. In the second section of the class, we explore international responses to ongoing armed conflicts. Particular attention is given to ethical and practical dilemmas that are associated with the provision of humanitarian assistance in conflict zones. We also consider the changing role of peacekeeping forces and peace support operations in the post-Cold War era, before going on to examine the dynamics of peace negotiations and the reasons for which particular peace agreements hold, while others fail. In the next section of the course, we turn our attention to post-conflict reconstruction. Specifically, we examine processes of statebuilding and regime-building that have taken place over the past twenty years, under the auspices of the “liberal peace” project. Issues associated with securing a post-conflict space and demobilizing combatants are first considered. We then move on to discuss regime- and institution-building, by looking at dilemmas associated with attempts to install electoral democracy and a market economy in a post-conflict space. The course concludes with an examination of various processes of transitional justice that may be implemented in the wake of armed conflict.

The aim of this seminar is to introduce students to the crucial topic of religion in world politics. Accepted wisdom has it that religion is resurgent and matters, but it is less clear what exactly this entails and precisely how religion matters. The seminar helps students expand their knowledge and advance their understanding by covering important issues from public religion to secularization and de-secularization, and from the influence of religion on US foreign policy to Islamist visions of order. In doing so, the seminar discusses some of the most topical trends in contemporary world politics and possible approaches to dealing with them. Class schedule: (1) Religion and politics; (2) The secularization debate; (3) Varieties of secularism; (4) Religion and political order; (5) Religion in rising Asia; (6) Faith and foreign policy; (7) Religion, radicalism, and violence; (8) Better angels?

This course covers the theory of nonviolent resistance, explanations of social mobilization, repertoires of nonviolent protest, technologies of protest, and transitions from nonviolent resistance into violence. The aims are to understand the normative foundations of nonviolent resistance and develop an empirical framework for explaining the causes, dynamics, and outcomes of such resistance. The course is divided into four sections, each two weeks long. The opening section covers theories and approaches to the study of nonviolence. In the first class, we explore contrasting understandings of social and political power, and consider how those varying approaches give rise to contrasting understandings of resistance. In the second class, we then look at two broad ways of studying nonviolent resistance; prescriptively, and empirically. The next section of the course focuses on processes of social mobilization that underwrite and sustain nonviolent resistance movements. One class explores the framing of collective motives to mobilize, and the other looks at the development of political opportunities that facilitate protests, as well as availability of the kinds material and human resources that actors need to realize a nonviolent protest, in practice. In the third section of the course, we explore the strategies and dynamics of nonviolent resistance; first at the domestic level, and then at the transnational level. And the course closes by considering the relationship between violent and nonviolent resistance; we first consider how and why violent insurgents may give up their arms and turn to nonviolence, and we then look at why nonviolent resistance sometimes fails, and collapses into violence. Throughout the course, we consider the above themes across a diverse set of historical and contemporary cases of nonviolent resistance, including the US civil rights movement, the anti-Apartheid struggle, the ‘Coloured Revolutions’ in post-communist countries, and the Arab Spring revolts..

This course is designed to introduce the emerging field of political economy of institutions and development, and to deepen understanding of how domestic institutions shape economic development in a globalized world. It engages students with the intellectual frontiers of institutions and development, highlighting the theoretical, empirical and public policy aspects of this literature. Beginning with an overview of leading perspectives on new institutional economics, the course will develop and critically assess key topics in the field, to include: the economics of property rights, of rent seeking and corruption, of institutions. It will also examine the process of economic change (especially the role of institutions in shaping governance and development paths), and the colonial origins of institutions and their impact on development. This course will be taught in a comparative and international context, and will furnish relevant evidence and examples from developing societies.

This course examines the development of the international political economy from the Post-World War II period to the present day. It seeks to achieve the following objectives: (i) to examine the key assumptions and propositions of the major paradigms of Classical Political Economy, the transformation of Political Economy into Economics in the late 19th century and its implications, and the contemporary theories of Political Economy that have attempted to bring politics and economics back together; (ii) to develop an analysis of the foundations of the post-war period of sustained growth and prosperity known as the ‘Golden Age of Capitalism’ or the ‘Thirty Glorious Years’; (iii) to explain the crisis of the 1970s, the demise of the post-war order and the emergence of the neoliberal order; and (iv) to analyse the current crisis of the neoliberal order by examining the origins of the latest financial crisis in the Unites States and its subsequent spread to Europe, as well as to evaluate the most recent policy responses to the crisis.

The objective of this course is to discuss the development of new techniques and methods of surveillance, employed by a plethora of state and non-state actors, with respect to the international regime of human rights. The course begins with the examination of the historical development of surveillance society and of the existing theoretical perspectives on surveillance processes and practices. It then moves on to the analysis of the impact of surveillance on different categories of individual rights which include political and civil rights (such as the right to privacy, the right to freedom of expression, the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty) as well as economic and social rights (the development of workplace surveillance and its implications for the rights of workers, the consequences of social sorting for the right to freedom from discrimination).

Information on non-core options is made available at the start of each academic year.

The course provided everything I looked for in a graduate program: strong theoretical grounding, practical tools in qualitative and quantitative research and analysis, and an array of elective courses, from which I was able to choose those that fit my interests the most.

Nadira Khudayberdieva, MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy 2011-12, now Program Manager at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, New York, US.

The degree aims to prepare you for a career in diplomacy and/or transnational and regional institutions of governance such as international organisations, nongovernmental organisations, and private sector firms interacting with these institutions. It also provides the basis for further education, including doctoral studies.

Graduates of the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy have joined the United Nations and other international organisations such as World Food Program, the diplomatic service in the UK and other countries, government departments across the globe, NGOs such as Oxfam and WWF, and the private sector in fields ranging from investment to energy.

Global Governance & Diplomacy Public Speaker Series

The Global Governance & Diplomacy Public Speaker Series brings diplomatic practitioners and academic scholars for a two-hour conversation with students and fellows of the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy. It is designed to allow GGD students and fellows to interact with experienced professionals and to discuss new perspectives on current diplomatic events and global governance challenges.

In order to facilitate an open and constructive conversation, the public speaker series talks follow the Chatham House Rule (participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed). Lectures last about 45-60 minutes (followed by 30-45 minutes of Q&A) and are followed by a small reception. Seminars are usually attended by 25-30 people.

Professor Corneliu Bjola won an OxTALENT Award in 2014 for his use of social media to enhance teaching on the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy.

Professor John Gledhill won an Oxford University Teaching Award in 2013. The awards recognise excellence in teaching and learning.

Please refer to the course webpage on the University Graduate Admissions pages for full information on selection criteria, application deadlines and English language requirements. Also see our How to Apply page.

Enquiries about the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy should be addressed to the Graduate Student Administrator, admissions@qeh.ox.ac.uk.